NGC 7129, NGC 7142 and a lot of bright stars (Massimo Di Fusco)

NGC 7129, NGC 7142 and a lot of bright stars

Even though it is the most difficult condition for me from my city sky, I just can't give up the beauty that can be achieved in broadband.
In this image I wanted to bring into the same frame the beautiful reflection nebula NGC 7129 at the top center, the open cluster NGC 7142 at the bottom left and a group of bright stars at the bottom right. We are, of course, in the constellation Cepheus.

NGC 7129 is a star-forming region that has many interesting features. Astronomers estimate that many of the bright stars it contains are less than 1 million years old. These "baby" stars are very energetic and emit abundant amounts of radiation that excite the gas clouds that surround them. Furthermore, the very red structures that can be seen indicate regions where new stars, that are not yet visible, are forming. These regions are often outflows of gas called Herbig Haro (HH) objects (the crescent-shaped object near the lower right of the nebula is, for example, HH103; see revision B).
Furthermore, energetic regions like this can often produce molecular masers. A maser (like a laser in visible wavelengths) is a coherent light signal in microwave wavelengths. In this case, molecules in these gas regions are excited by high-energy photons and re-emit microwaves back towards us preferentially. The fascinating thing is that the molecules in question are quite important to us: they are water molecules!

NGC 7142 is an open cluster about 6200 light years away from us. Its proximity to the reflection nebula NGC 7129 suggests that the cluster may be obscured by an interstellar cloud. And in fact, many studies have shown that this is indeed the case. This cluster is believed to be close in age to the old open clusters M67 and NGC 188 and this makes it one of the oldest open clusters currently known.

Final
Original
B

B

Description: HH objects

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Processed with Photoshop
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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	10021835
PixInsight job	FPZ8XZNCMDTEFTJ6CG7XVSR7YV5X9ZN6
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	21h42m11s.456
RA (top/left)	21h48m01s.418
RA (top/right)	21h36m18s.187
RA (bottom/right)	21h36m33s.780
RA (bottom/left)	21h47m54s.860

Dec (center)	+66°00′45″.93
Dec (top/left)	+66°26′01″.41
Dec (top/right)	+66°25′23″.35
Dec (bottom/right)	+65°34′44″.79
Dec (bottom/left)	+65°35′17″.17

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